


To Live Defeated

by petcheetah



Series: August Prompts 2019 [13]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Character Death, Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-21 00:03:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20236582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petcheetah/pseuds/petcheetah
Summary: “Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.”- Napoleon BonaparteTo be strong when the one closest to you dies, that’s what Luffy learns to be.





	To Live Defeated

Luffy always made sure to live his life as fully as he possibly could. When he was younger it was something that came naturally to him, something that he never needed to think twice about. It was that way for a long time. It lasted long into him becoming a teenager and leaving home to experience the life of a pirate like his brother Ace before him. It remained as he went in search of a crew that would suit the future King of the Pirates. But there was a time when he didn’t.

After Marineford, it was difficult to want to go out and live his life the way he had before. Watching his brother die in front of him, after they had already set him free, was something that would forever stick in his mind’s eye no matter how hard he tried to get rid of it. For the first time Luffy looked at the world and didn’t see an adventure. All he saw was a world that was cruel enough to take away both his brothers because of who they were and the people they were related to. It was a realisation that his usual belief in people had put aside, even with everything he had seen on his adventures.

Luffy had always been an optimist. It was something that was at the core of who he was, and would always play a large part in who Monkey D. Luffy is. He did what he could to make everyday another adventure, because there was no reason to spend a day doing nothing when they could be out in the world, learning new things and being around friends.

When he lost Ace, he spent days upon days unable to bring himself to get up and look for the adventure of the day. It was easier to live doing nothing than try and push through the cloud of despair that followed him around.

It was Rayleigh who gave him the push to get out of it.

What would Ace want him to do? Would Ace want to see him out here, mourning him?

The answer was a simple one. Of course not. Ace wanted him to live his life to the fullest, experiencing the life of a pirate and doing the very best to never stop _ living. _Ace had learnt what that meant, maybe too late, but he wouldn’t want Luffy wasting it by wandering around doing nothing.

So he did what had always been natural to him, even if it was hard, and he got up, and he followed Rayleigh, and he learnt how to survive in the New World like Ace would want him.

And when he made it back to his friends in two years time, there would forever be a haunted look in his eyes, but he would have the ability to push through it now.

He was going to keep living his life to the fullest. He would make Ace proud. And he would become the Pirate King, not allowing even a single new experience to escape him.

That’s what it meant to be Monkey D. Luffy, and he would never allow that to change.


End file.
